Dealing with Turntable.fm, A Smart Move for Record Companies
March 29, 2012 1 Comment
The folks at Turntable.fm got a lot of cooperation and help from the record companies. In an interview with Billboard, co-founder Seth Goldstein had this to say:
“We felt that from the get-go the labels were absolutely different from what I’d been led to believe. They gave us a lot of time and attention. Compared to their user base, we’re a tiny service in the broad scheme of things.”
The notoriously tough-to-deal-with industry seems to have made a one-eighty. I doubt it’s because they felt like being nice. They see something in Turntable.fm.
They see one of the most valuable music marketing tools since Mtv.
Turntable.fm can be used much like Pandora Radio, but instead of The Human Genome Project selecting your next song, it’s another user. It’s the social Pandora. I dare say it’s more social than Spotify combined with Facebook.
It’s pretty simple, a user can be a DJ or a listener. If he’s a DJ, his songs are played alongside the songs of the other DJs. If he’s a listener, he has the option to say a song is “Awesome,” “Lame,” or to just listen. While a song is playing, links to Amazon, iTunes, Spotify, and other services are displayed.
This interactive music listening platform causes music to be the main stimulus rather than a background stimulus.
Turntable.fm won’t be much use to passive listeners who already have Spotify, radio, or Pandora. Therefore, it becomes a community of people who listen to music for an emotional or intellectual experience; active listeners. These are the people who purchase the most music, and they’re often the early adopters.
Turntable.fm also makes music listening more social than ever. It’s the virtual-reality equivalent of being in a club or hanging out with friends, with the main purpose being to share and listen to music. And the whole process is democratic, you can vote whether a song should be played or not. It’s like radio, minus the radio personalities, but your requests get played more often.
The recording industry has been needing something like this. It is the best music discovery tool on the web. It basically uses word-of-mouth to promote music. If it can become as popular as something like Last.fm, the record labels will have made a wise decision. If the listening service flops, they won’t have lost anything.
Related articles
- As expected, Turntable.fm licenses songs from major labels (news.cnet.com)
- Turntable.fm Goes ‘Legit’ With Licenses From All 4 Major Labels (wired.com)
Working with the up-and-comers is a smart move for someone like Snoop Dogg. It’ll help keep his fan base fresh. Especially when the collaboration creates a wonderful piece of art that combines the best of old school hip hop with the best of new school hip hop, and lots of innovation.
Then, it can be listened to over and over again, and the listener will be making discoveries long after he/she has learned every lyric. It’s been a long while since I’ve heard music this good. I could rave about it for hours. It creates, in me, euphoria.
